College of Medicine & Dentistry

I am a medical graduate with postgraduate qualifications in epidemiology and population health. I went to Dhaka Medical College, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh for my undergraduate medical education (MBBS). I did MS in Epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, USA (2003-4) and PhD from the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Research School of Population Health, The Australian National University in Canberra (2011-14).

I worked at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) for more than a decade (2000 to 2010) as a public health researcher. My areas of research include communicable diseases, the interplay between communicable and non-communicable diseases, maternal and child health, nutrition, environmental determinants of health and One Health. I have carried out research applying different epidemiological study designs, spanning from cross-sectional surveys, case-control studies, surveillance, randomized controlled trials and cluster-randomized trials. For my PhD thesis, using mixed methods, I evaluated the implementation of strategies targeting elimination of visceral leishmaniasis from South Asia. This study was funded by my home institution, icddr,b. As the Principal Investigator, I received a New Researcher Award (USD 50,000) for this operations research. I also succeeded in the grant application for a research project on climate change and major vector borne diseases in Bangladesh. I received extramural funding (AUD 104,000) from the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) through its Australian Development Research Award mechanism.

I taught epidemiology and research methods to the Master of Public Health students at the James P Grant School of Public Health in Dhaka, Bangladesh for five years (2006 to 2010). In Australia, I worked at Griffith University as a Lecturer in Epidemiology within the School of Medicine (2015-17). I was based within the discipline of Public Health there but was involved in teaching both post-graduate and undergraduate students including the medical students. At the James Cook University, I worked for a year (2017-18) within the discipline of Public Health and Tropical Medicine as a Lecturer. I was involved in teaching and coordinating subjects on Communicable Disease Control and One Health. In my current position, within the School of Medicine, I am involved in teaching research methods, preventive medicine and global health to the undergraduate medical students.

In addition to my teaching involvements in academic settings, I have also provided research methods consultancy to the hospital clinicians for their research work as well as to other external professional bodies and conducted formal training on research methods for the clinicians and consultants in hospitals.

I have supervised students for their research, as a part of their course work or higher degree research. I always enjoy accompanying the students in their learning journey towards designing, conducting, analysing, interpreting and disseminating research that would benefit people in the long run.

I have so far authored in 14 research articles published in world-class peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Infectious Diseases, International Journal of Nursing Studies, PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, PLoS Medicine, Vaccine, Clinical Infectious Diseases, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition and Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition. Of these papers, I am the first author of six of them. I have also written book chapters, monographs and reports. I have given multiple national and international conference presentations.

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I am a medical graduate with postgraduate qualifications in epidemiology and population health. I went to Dhaka Medical College, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh for my undergraduate medical education (MBBS). I did MS in Epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, USA (2003-4) and PhD from the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Research School of Population Health, The Australian National University in Canberra (2011-14).